Cameron: “… getting great feedback …”
NEWBURGH – Police brass updated Newburgh residents about the city department’s successes in a forum Thursday evening.
Chief Daniel Cameron attributes the successes in large part to community-police relations with foot patrols scoring high.
“From the second we started foot patrols we were getting great feedback, which lead to invitations to different community events, and us not turning down any invitations, and us finding the funding to make sure that we can attend all these community initiatives and that’s huge, huge to the point where we don’t have a crowd of people in the room at a Strengthen Police/Community Relations who are angry with the police,” said Cameron. “They see what we’re doing on a daily basis. They know we’re committed to it and they know we’ve been doing it, so we do what we say.”
Since the beginning of these forums, the city police have invested the entirety of a $60,000 grant from Senator William Larkin into their community policing efforts. Also, last year, there was a 42 percent increase in self-initiated community policing activities by the city’s officers; meaning, officers are integrating themselves, as well as building community relationships, more and more.
In addition, there have been a number of other programs showing success
to that end. Newburgh is boasting the highest class count in the country
for the Youth Police Initiative. The city’s Crisis Intervention
Program is becoming a best practice model for departments across the state.
Their Group Violence Intervention is putting pressure on the smallest
groups who are committing the majority of violent crimes, and community/police
relations forums are becoming fuller, more dynamic and longer in duration.
It was apparent that the forums, which in the beginning showed an obvious tension between both parties, have evolved into a successful partnership, filled with community organizations and residents willing to commit to working together.
Imam Hamzah Alameen, the executive director of clinical services and pastoral care at Crisis Recovery Network LLC, who was very vocal during the forum, said he is pleased with the open-mindedness of Newburgh’s police department, but submitted that a next step be taken to integrate the municipal programs at an even deeper level with the families.
“Newburgh is really, really at a social deficit is the best way that I can say it, and the way to improve it is through families,” said Alameen. “You can’t work against the family and expect the family to work with you. You have to show the family there’s some advantage to working with law enforcement and these other programs.”
Alameen, who is also a behavioral science researcher, said empirical data shows that treating a family, as opposed to focusing just on the offender is more effective.
“You’ve got the child in services, why don’t we treat the whole family while we’ve got them?” Alameen asked “Why aren’t we treating the mother, the father? I don’t care if he’s in jail or on the street, wherever he’s at, let’s treat them all; we have them there. Don’t you know that the kid is not going to be too enthused about going into treatment, it’s punitive, but the mother would be.”
Chief Cameron said they are not turning down any invitations, or input, from anyone who wants to partner with them in this endeavor.
“Any crime problem cannot be solved without the community,” Cameron said.
